5 Ways To Use Instagram’s New Go Live With A Friend Feature For Your Business

26 Oct 5 Ways To Use Instagram’s New Go Live With A Friend Feature For Your Business

Yesterday Instagram rolled out another great feature: Go Live With A Friend! This new feature allows you to broadcast along with someone else. This opens up a whole new world for Instagram Live Videos, and in this post I’ll give you 5 ideas on how you can use Instagram’s Live With A Friend for you brand or business.

How To Use Instagram’s Go Live With A Friend

Going Live With A Friend is simple. Open the camera on the upper left hand side of your Instagram home screen and go live like you normally would. Tap the two happy faces icon on the bottom right and tap “Add” to invite anyone who’s currently watching your Live Story. Once they join, the screen split into two and your guest will pop up right below you on the screen.

You can swap one guest with another at any time during your Live Story, or they can see themselves out on their own.  Like with any other Live Story you can share your Live With a Friend video to your stories when your broadcast has ended, or choose “Discard”.

Benefits to Going Live With A Friend

Last week we reviewed the 8 things you can learn from the best Instagram accounts, including that successful accounts take advantage of Stories, Live Stories and new features. You’ll probably be seeing some of your favorite influencers using the Instagram Go Live With A Friend feature soon. First we know videos and live videos are getting the most reach across all social media networks. Using Stories and Live Stories is also a great way to connect with your audience beyond your feed and is an opportunity to show your brand personality. I am also finding that my clients who use Live Stories are seeing more audience growth and retention on Instagram than those that don’t.

You’ll also be able to save your Live With A Friend Story for re-purposing on other networks, or hosting it on a page that anyone who missed it can replay.

The best part about Live With A Friend Stories is that they can expose your business to a new audience. This is because when someone goes live with a friend, you’ll see two circles stacked together in your stories bar.

Last but not least if you’re shy, teaming up with someone for a live story might ease you into the whole thing.

5 Ideas For Instagram’s Go Live With A Friend Stories Feature For Business

1. Interviews/Q & A

Instagram Live With A Friend feature is going to be great for conducting interviews with someone else or for conducting question and answer sessions with a fan or another influencer withing your industry and your audience.

2. Collaboration/Joint “Webinars” Or Takeovers

A very popular way to grow your audience on social media as a business is to conduct webinars or collaborate with other industry experts to create content. This can bring the webinar experience to the live space. You’ll now be able to work with others to conduct live sessions based around a specific topic – which can add a lot of value to your audience.

3. Collaboration Announcements

Speaking of collaborating with Instagram’s Go Live With A Friend Story, how fun would it be to announce a big collaboration between yourself and another brand live! You can grab your partner to announce your collaboration and build buzz for the live broadcast.

4. Round Ups

Some of the most popular content out there is the round up. They help businesses connect with influencers and can help participants reach new audiences (when those mentioned in the round up share the specific post). Round ups also add a lot of value to readers because you can get a lot of information from different sources in one post. Since you can swap guests on Live With A Friend Stories, it can be a really fun way to create a round up your audience will enjoy.

5. Contests

Contests are another fantastic way to see quick growth on social media. Instagram Live With A Friend Stories can offer a lot of fun contest opportunities. Imagine a game show format contest where you can have your followers participate in your broadcast and answer questions for a prize! This type of initiative can be a really great way to add personality to your account.

I hope this post has helped you drum up some ideas about how your business can use Instagram’s Go Live With A Friend feature! Which one of these ideas are you most likely to try? If this all seems like too much too soon read “How to Use Instagram Stories For Business” for some basic ideas on how to get started with Instagram Stories.

<3 DhariLo